greeting of the strangers. The chief man of the household treated them
at first with the decencies of Indian hospitality; but when he saw them
kneeling in the litter and ashes at their devotions, his suppressed fears
found vent, and he began a loud harangue, addressed half to them and half
to the Indians. "Now, what are these _okies_ doing? They are making
charms to kill us, and destroy all that the pest has spared in this house.
I heard that they were sorcerers; and now, when it is too late, I believe
it." [ Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1640, 96. ] It is wonderful that
the priests escaped the tomahawk. Nowhere is the power of courage, faith,
and an unflinching purpose more strikingly displayed than in the record
of these missions.

In other Tobacco towns their reception was much the same; but at the
largest, called by them St. Peter and St. Paul, they fared worse.
They reached it on a winter afternoon. Every door of its capacious bark
houses was closed against them; and they heard the squaws within calling
on the young men to go out and split their heads, while children screamed
abuse at the black-robed sorcerers. As night approached, they left the
town, when a band of young men followed them, hatchet in hand, to put
them to death. Darkness, the forest, and the mountain favored them; and,
eluding their pursuers, they escaped. Thus began the mission of the
Tobacco Nation.

In the following November, a yet more distant and perilous mission was
begun. Brebeuf and Chaumonot set out for the Neutral Nation. This
fierce people, as we have already seen, occupied that part of Canada
which lies immediately north of Lake Erie, while a wing of their
territory extended across the Niagara into Western New York. [ 1 ]
In their athletic proportions, the ferocity of their manners, and the
extravagance of their superstitions, no American tribe has ever exceeded